


worship

by roasthoney



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Adultery, Canon, Infidelity, M/M, Pretentiousness, Religious overtones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:25:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roasthoney/pseuds/roasthoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>their battles leave little bruises on harry's skin but he calls them trophies as if he's five again and in the sandbox fighting some hypothetical bully. except there is no sandbox, and no bully, just him and zayn. harry and zayn, zayn and harry.</p><p>it would look horrible on a wedding invite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	worship

**Author's Note:**

> “For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” 
> 
> \- Charles Bukowski

harry's good at worshiping zayn. good at tracing the bow of his lips with his tongue as his hands bump up each step of his spine, climbing the steps of his alter, whispering prayer into his mouth. he's good at watching him, peeling his layers off one by one, watching his eyes flutter and muscles spasm when he can't wrangle control out of his own body. harry knows him well enough to draw a distinction between what's real and what's not; he sees the mask on his face, picks at the edges when he's feeling daring, coaxes him to take it off when it's them alone and the cameras are gone. his methods are conniving and cheap (zayn's thighs taut with tension whenever harry pauses, green eyes cast up towards him, hand cradling him with his lips against the head as if it was a kiss, voice still with that warm gentle rasp but heavy with his demands) and he knows it. they both know it.

but they continue. see, harry calls himself careful. he knows when to stop, when to walk away, when to divorce his mind from his body to let the pure goodness overtake him. he likes to think in all his years of experience he's grown to be smart about this. slick, even. as if he's the one playing the game and pulling the strings even when he's on his back and trembling, begging, ribs splayed out for zayn to pick them clean. maybe eighteen year old harry styles would fumble and swear and lose little bits of himself in the lines of zayn's palms but no, not him.

there's a certain kind of cruelty in all the sweet nothings he tells zayn, even when the other man gives him a guarded look and shuts him up with a mouth or hand. harry isn't young enough to pretend he's unaware of the effect he has on other people; he's famous, he has an image, he breaks hearts, and he knows. it's out of his control - a rational summation. but the women and men he's touched and worshiped and overwhelmed with his complete and utter focus, his intoxicating devotion, his conscious decision to imitate the finest form of love he has ever known, they're casualties. 

zayn doesn't notice. says nothing when harry sleeps with anyone else, flirts in front of his face, and he returns back to his fiance's arms as if nothing was wrong. chats about her with his friends (the ones that harry doesn't know, will never know, distance too far to cross) and makes wedding plans when he feels like it. tosses dates around in wayward conversations and picks up her calls post sex with a fresh lit cigarette balancing on his lip and a pair of unzipped jeans lazily pulled up to his waist. he isn't in a rush. he listens to her talk about absolutely nothing, or everything, even once listened to her cry with his skin still damp from sweat and harry doesn't recognize the tight feeling in his chest. it's not jealousy - not juvenile enough to qualify. he isn't heartbroken, he knew this coming in from the start and he knows the difference between the dull pain of a breakup and this strange twist up in the space where his heart should lay. 

he doesn't recognize it. nearly as frustrating as the way sometimes zayn ends their arguments by shutting himself down and refusing to listen to anything harry says, wrong or right it doesn't matter, and he supposes the unfairness of it is what bothers him. there is no right, no wrong, no space for moral judgement when he's got a million other thoughts whirring around his head and a million other justifications sitting on the bottom of his throat ready to be thrown out whenever his own sense of morality starts to rebel. zayn, through all of it, seems immune. aloof almost, as if he's grasped the secret of being god and secured his place on earth as if he was chosen to be carved into it. harry questions his own almost every day.

.

it's hard to pinpoint when it first started. maybe when their drunk kisses finally morphed into something more and harry was thanking the gods to finally have his hands down those damned pants, until he realized that the only person to show his gratitude was to zayn himself and he swallowed him down wet and fast - no finesse at all - bobbing and swallowing until zayn jerked and spilled down his throat. they fell into bed every other day that week, and then the next, and the next, and so on it turned into months like a monster feeding on the distance closing between them. at first they did nothing but fuck and rest and vent, but harry always had trouble keeping his mouth shut. questions traced by his tongue on the line of each tattoo turned into questions asked when the sun was about the set and the bags under his eyes were heavy enough to make them droop. casual nights became parts of his mental schedule as easy as remembering to breathe in and out because they both knew when the other was tense, when they just wanted to kill time, when they needed a body by their side because it was the only one they could trust.

harry is harry. zayn is zayn. nothing changes except for their bodies. ones that relax around each other without any words necessary, ready to spark and explode sometimes when their moods clash and neither has the patience to pretend to be better persons than who they actually were. if zayn thought harry's absentmindedly honest comments about anything in the world were ugly, he doesn't mind. harry tastes the bitterness on zayn's tongue, the mix of sweetness and ashy burn at the end of a joint, the high afterwards that leads him to make bad decisions. 

there were no melodramatic questions in the middle of the night -

do you love me?

no, they both knew.

do you care?

to an extent, in that funny way humans divided up parts of their attention to prefer the people they liked more.

does it matter?

on this question, harry pauses. he catches the way zayn's steady gaze falters and catches a glimpse of something else when he's bent in half later that night, called a graceful arc in an unfamiliar tone and harry nearly laughs because he's anything but graceful. on the next morning when he closes the hotel door and hears the lock click knowing that the chances of him ever coming back to this room is little to none, he thinks it's a moment he can write into his journal. but it fades as fast as it comes and he walks off before anyone can ask him why he hesitates.

.

the day the date of the wedding is announced is the optimal time for any heartache to set in. if there is any in the first place, harry concludes. but when the news break he doesn't feel his soul break nor does the sound around him dull in any sort. he nods, and he smiles, and he congratulates. eighteen year old harry would've been brittle and most likely thrown a pity party for himself, but harry knows better now. he counts himself lucky it lasted so long because it's stupid to ignore how strong the connection between them is, even if not the strongest, and stares a few blank pages in his journal hoping a striking poem will pop up and surprise him with its brilliance. it doesn't. but zayn lasts a month of small talk and no glances shared between them until he caves in and harry _likes_ the burn on his knees when he worships him. letting out of his need for touch and affection into a single-minded point of obsession dangling himself over the edge again and again for the spike in adrenaline and release near the end.

that night harry sinks into zayn with the straightforward mission to please but his own determination surprises him; he needs to see him fall apart underneath him, enough to break the cool look on the face and the aloofness he calls a guard. zayn retaliates with a bite on his shoulder hard enough to break skin and an accusation of depravity whispered in harry's ear that makes him come hard enough to see stars. zayn strokes himself off after almost triumphant in his refusal to finish first. 

their battles leave little bruises on harry's skin but he calls them trophies as if he's five again and in the sandbox fighting some hypothetical bully. except there is no sandbox, and no bully, just him and zayn. harry and zayn, zayn and harry. 

it would look horrible on a wedding invite.

.

"do you love me?"

harry asks after a particularly standard night. the first time it leaves his mouth it doesn't feel monumental. not like a mistake either, more like a stray thought leaving his lips. he lacks the filter he carries around every other second of the day and his heart fails to skip a beat when zayn looks up from his phone screen. the glow of it makes him look paler than he is and harry thinks that's a shame. he knows who he's texting without having to look at it. zayn runs a hand through his hair to pull it out of his face and tilts his head so slight harry nearly misses it. he slides himself up onto zayn's lap and plucks the phone out of his hands so he can set it carefully onto their nightstand. he won't see that hunk of wood ever again, he manages to note to himself in the moment. he probably won't ever do this again, he thinks to himself as he kisses zayn with a gentle desperation. 

for a second he wishes they knocked teeth or accidentally bit tongues because the imperfection would be some sign of a deathless romance that was as clumsy as it was electrifying. but the rhythm of his hips that he eventually reaches is steady and consistent, guided by the iron grip of zayn's hands. when he was young, sex was this mystifying act that was supposed to mean everything. sure it could be casual, with a lot of different people, but he threw his whole body into it each time. this time he feels somewhat unsteady and uncertain as if it's all in his head and it meaning nothing actually means something. it makes no sense; he leaves it a tangled muddled mess in his mind.

.

one night, zayn comes to him and slams harry hard enough against the wall to bruise. he would complain if it wasn't for the suffocating press of his mouth on his erasing all thoughts from the surface. god, if only there was another way to get his head this blissfully clear. his world shrinks done to one purpose and one job and he knows how to do it, he's fucking good at it. why else would zayn keep coming back - why else would he keep sleeping in his bed instead of his fiance's, why. harry used to think there was supposed to be a grand reason behind every act of adultery or even heartbreak because people didn't just wildly love each other and then hurt for the sake of hurting, they didn't just split up because they drifted away or simply stopped loving. it had to be grand; it had to be clear; it had to be obvious and electrifying and soulcrushing and it had to be love.

but now he knows that humans are fickle. and sometimes they act for no discernible reason. when they fall into bed it isn't because zayns is feeling particularly needy, nor does his level of low underlying guilt ever seem to fluctuate. harry never gets a sudden urge to confess or demand zayn make a choice because there is no A or B, this or that, harry or her, road one or road two. it isn't quite so simple. yet the way they fall into each other is simple and easier than anything harry has ever done in his life. the way he breathes in sync with zayn and fits his body around his is effortless. 

it's always easy between them yet zayn kisses him with a fury that harry's never tasted in his mouth before and god, let his god do whatever he wants, let him break and bend him because the burn is as addicting as it is foreign. zayn's hands hold the sides of harry's face instead of the hem of his pants and he's confused - he's never been confused, their thoughts were always in tandem in what they wanted and what they didn't want. the unfamiliar look on zayn's face throws harry out of balance as his head is starting to whirl like some fucked up merry go round he never saw himself riding with zayn. 

"you love me," zayn says, a declaration in every way. 

"i don't." 

harry is never defiance. he's usually sidestepping feet and charming smiles and toes wiggling in zayn's face when he isn't listening to him, long body rolling off the bed in an exaggerated fashion with zayn swats it away and they laugh. 

"you do." zayn kisses him as if that will solve everything but it doesn't. no puzzle pieces click into place and the tightness squeezes his chest but harry doesn't know how to say it, how to explain that there isn't any love. that isn't how love works. _this_ isn't how love works. he's not eighteen anymore. he doesn't worship the sanctity of marriage and think that all the high school sweethearts he knows will stay together forever. he doesn't read trashy romances or believe in the flimsy romcoms he used to eat up with greedy hands and a messy mouth. he doesn't think a flutter of eyelashes and light flush on the cheeks are signs of love; he doesn't expect any sort of sweetness from zayn and he thought it was mutual. 

"i _don't_." harry pulls him closer, pulls him tight, uses his body to communicate what his words fail to say because if he loved him he would've pushed him away long ago. he would've demanded that zayn stop this now and fuck he can't do this any more, he can't fucking sleep with him and then hear him tell his fiance he loves her more than anything in the world, he can't look at the tenderness on zayn's face knowing that it's not for him without wanting to scream, he can't want more than he can have; he would've broken by now if he loved him. 

"you're a filthy fucking liar," zayn bites into harry's bottom lip and harry thinks he hasn't been this achingly hard in a long time. it's fucked up - he's fucked up, but he knows it. they both do, judging by the frantic rocking between their slotted hips still fully clothed and pressed up against the wall. "and you're a cheat," he gasps out in return with gritted teeth, practically throwing his body against zayn's. "a fucking cheat." he bites out all of his frustration into it and claws a hand down zayn's back. there is no worship in his mouth or the sharp edges of his body clashing with zayn's. there is no worship in rawness, in the frightening flash of a snarl on zayn's face. harry only knows how to worship impassiveness and a boy who seemed immune to all of the fake love he poured into him, but god help him he doubts the falsity of his affection now most of all. it's buried in deeper than he thought, like unraveling a needle and thread that's burrowed in around his ribs and through his heart.

"you're not innocent in this. what do you think -" they both speed up, close to the peak, vision blurring and bodies aching from the lack of restrain. zayn's voice is swaying up and down like a boat at sea and it's wavering, a goal harry has always tried to reach, but it lacks the satisfaction he craves. "what do you think _love_ is?" and fuck, harry can't think. he can't remember what he thought when he was eighteen and he can't remember what he thinks now. he's being burnt up down to charbone and he wants it to stop because isn't love pain, isn't it redemption and forgiveness, isn't it purity that stands strong before all else, doesn't it conquer all. isn't it more than the crest of pleasure that comes over them both, more than the weight of zayn's body settling atop his as they slump down to the ground. 

zayn and harry. harry and zayn, he never thought there was space for love there. he still didn't understand the tightness in his chest. or why his face is wet now with tears spilling down without the dull ache of heartbreak. if he had half a mind left he'd rationalize it by thinking he never invested his heart, so how could it break, but he's too raw and tired and he feels so fucking old he wants to crawl up into zayn's chest and wait there for the storm to pass. love can't be holding on knowing that he's leaving anyway. love just doesn't work like that. 

but when he says, "i'm not eighteen anymore," it sounds like a yes. and when he lets zayn move away, helps him even, it still sounds like a yes.

"i know." this zayn is too worn down to be worshiped. too broken, too conflicted, too human. too irrational, too impulsive, too similar. so much more than a god, harry thinks. so much more. 

the twist in his chest is sharp enough to carve promises into his bones. but neither of them say a word and love - same as how zayn and harry are just that, nothing more. zayn and harry. harry and zayn. curling into each other's orbits without a sound. and love, love without all the necessary parts love needs to be love, love repeated until love crumbles, no vast emptiness or fulfillment, it's only space. 

it exists.


End file.
